If Leonard Williams keeps this up, Mike Macdonald will have Seahawks defense he demands

Leonard Williams was throwing Arizona Cardinals around like dog toys.

Evan Brown, bulldozed. Paris Johnson, discarded.

“He got after it today,” Williams’ former New York Giants teammate Julian Love said Sunday evening, talking over bass that boomed across the Seahawks’ locker room at Lumen Field. “He’s just a beast. The best in the league, one of the best in the league. You guys saw that today.”

So did quarterback Kyler Murray and his flattened Cardinals.

Sunday showed why Seattle general manager John Schneider traded for the veteran defensive end from the Giants last season. Sunday is why Schneider gave Williams a new, $64.5 million contract before this season.

Williams wrecked Murray. He ruined Arizona’s offense. He is the 6-foot-5, 310-pound reason the Cardinals managed just two field goals, went 3 for 12 converting third downs, went 0 for 2 in the red zone, why the Seahawks rose to the top of the NFC West with a 16-6 throttling of Arizona at Lumen Field.

“I thought he was dominant,” coach Mike Macdonald said.

That’s the same word the 30-year-old Williams, a Pro Bowl selection in 2016 with the Giants, used after his 20th game with the Seahawks.

“I think that definitely was my most dominant game since being a part of the Seahawks,” he said.

Moving up and down Macdonald’s defensive line, onto the poor Brown at guard and outside against the tackle, Williams thrashed offensive linemen Sunday like few Seahawks have since Michael Bennett, Cliff Avril, Ahtyba Rubin and friends were steamrolling lines a decade ago.

Williams finished with six tackles, 2 1/2 sacks and four hits on Murray. He had three tackles for losses. He even defensed a pass. That was when he hit Murray as the QB threw incomplete late in the first quarter. Officials originally ruled it as a fumble and touchdown return by Seattle’s Tyrice Knight. Replay review corrected it to a forward pass Williams forced to go into the turf.

In one Arizona series in the third quarter, after Coby Bryant’s fourth-down interception return for the game-changing touchdown and the Seahawks’ 13-3 lead, Williams again blew through Brown, Seattle’s starting center last season. Then Williams dumped James Conner, the NFL’s leader with yards after contact entering Sunday, with a thudding tackle for a 4-yard loss.

Williams called that his best play of his bonkers day. So much for that foot injury that kept him from practicing Wednesday and Thursday leading into the game.

“My favorite play today was the TFL that I had, just because I didn’t get too much practice this week, because I was dealing with some stuff,” Williams said. “Because I didn’t practice too much, I was able to watch more film.

“That specific play I can tell when those two guys were pulling and it just like slowed down for me. That’s one of those moments when you’re just in the zone, you’re letting people feed off of you, I was feeding off the crowd.

“The 12s were just really loud out there today, so it was great energy all around.”

That play had the fans in Lumen Field roaring at some at the loudest levels of the season. Williams charged them some more. He ended that Arizona possession by sacking Murray on third and long for an 11-yard loss.

“I knew he played great,” Macdonald said, “and then I looked at the stat line and he played out of his mind.”

Actually, Williams played exactly within his mind.

Williams felt it

Williams said he awakened Sunday morning in the Seahawks’ hotel before games in Bellevue with a premonition he was going to ball out against Arizona.

“It was interesting,” Williams said, “because I woke up this morning with a great feeling. And pretty much everyone I approached before the game, I told them I’ve got a good feeling about this game.

“It wasn’t directed toward my personal success. It was directed toward the team’s success. I just had a great feeling about it.

“I just had great energy out there today. And it showed.”

Mike Macdonald’s defense taking shape

This Sunday — actually, for the third Sunday in a row — is how Macdonald wants to play his Seahawks defense.

Seattle (6-5) has in succession held the Los Angeles Rams’ offense to 13 points in regulation of an overtime loss, the San Francisco 49ers to 17 points on their home field and now the Cardinals to just two field goals. Arizona (6-5) had scored 28, 29 and 31 points to win their last three games to take the lead in the division.

The defense that allowed San Francisco’s third- and fourth-string backs 228 yards rushing last month, that allowed the lowly Giants 175 and New England 185 before that, held the Rams to 68 yards rushing Nov. 3. In the rematch with San Francisco the 49ers rushed for 131, but All-Pro Christian McCaffrey gained just 68 after years of romping through the Seahawks.

The Cardinals with a pulling, gap-scheme run defense Seattle hadn’t faced recently were averaging 149 yards rushing entering Sunday. They were leading the NFL with first downs by rushing and yards rushing after contact.

The Seahawks held Arizona to 49 yards on 14 carries. When Williams, new middle linebacker Ernest Jones (10 tackles), new starting weakside inside linebacker Knight (nine tackles, one sack, one tackle for loss, one hit on Murray) hit Cardinals ball carriers they fell. Immediately.

Macdonald has envisioned Williams being a dynamic, multi-gap force who can be an end, a tackle, a menace from center past the offense’s tackles. The 37-year-old defensive mind wants Williams to lead a posse of interchangeable players along a defensive front that changes at the snap and by the play to confuse offenses.

Williams was all that and more against Arizona.

“Yeah, not many like him walking the planet,” Macdonald said. “And I’m glad he’s on our team.”

Williams said this defensive uprising, playing to more of the standard the 37-year-old Macdonald set the previous two seasons as the coordinator for the Baltimore Ravens’ top-ranked defense, has come after a team meeting coming out of Seattle’s bye two weeks ago.

The Seahawks were then 4-5. They’d lost five of their previous six games to ruin a 3-0 start over inferior competition. The team’s leadership council of veterans pledged more urgency, to play the final seven games of the season like playoff games.

Since then, they are 2-0 with division wins over San Francisco and Arizona that have reversed their season. The Seahawks have gone from last place to first with six games remaining. The next one is at the New York Jets (3-8) next weekend, followed by a rematch with the Cardinals in Arizona in two weeks, Dec. 8.

“I think there were a few leaders that met up, before the 49ers game and pretty much talked about how we’re pretty much in playoff mode. It was right after the bye week,” Williams said. “We had two divisional opponents coming up, back-to-back, and we knew where we were in the division rankings and stuff like that.

“Ever since we had that conversation, we’ve been treating it like playoffs. Since then, I just feel like our team has been coming closer together. We’re playing with great energy. Just great energy.”